Are you a Scarecrow or a Lead Magnet?

Are you a Scarecrow or a Lead Magnet?

When trying to find a new supplier what turns you off the most?

• Unclear website
• Inability to find their website
• Poor signage (building or vehicle)
• Poor customer service either on the phone or face to face
• Confusing advertisements
• Not using a domain name for their email
• Only having mobile numbers listed – not a landline
• Bulk Emails to everyone and their dog, without personalization
• The feeling that the company you are looking at is too cheap and wouldn’t provide a quality service because of their over zealous discounting tactics.

There are a myriad of things that can turn a potential client off of your business, think about what you dislike when you are looking for a new supplier for either a product or a service. These types of critical errors in effect make you a bit of a scarecrow. Its time to discard the floppy hat and the beady eyes, to transform your business into a lead magnet instead.

So now have a think about the product or service you provide and how you market your business, are you lacking in customers because of some of the same problems? If so try some of these tactics so your business attracts leads like never before.

How to appeal to your target market and become a lead magnet.

• Ensure your website is easy to navigate, easy to read, succinct (everyone is time poor).
• Make sure you have an SEO and link building plan and that it is executed effectively, this could make the difference between just scraping by and doing really well. The investment is worth it, if you choose the right SEO company (we recommend www.mattersolutions.com.au)
• If you have point of sale, building or vehicle signage, make sure it is clean, easy to read, current and that you choose a legible font from a distance.
• You do not have a business without people, your staff are your biggest asset and the reason that people come back to your company to buy your products/services. If they are not coming back, perhaps look at your team and monitor what they say, their mannerisms and how they convert the prospect to a sale (or not). Listen to the phone conversations, if they have no enthusiasm or are rude then you will loose customers hand over fist. Getting the right people to promote your business, work in your business and grow your business is absolutely critical to the success of your business.
• Make sure your advertising message is just that – a message not an ad all about your logo and discounted price. Choose a catchy headline and consider the AIDA principle Attract / Interest / Desire / Action. Attract their attention (make the ad compelling to read), Gain the readers interest – you want them to read on, make them desire your product or service through detailing the features and benefits (e.g. your skin care range has a unique formula which will reduce the appearance of wrinkles). Then add in your call to action – this is your offer and the reason that they will contact you to purchase. Ads without offers are just branding and do not attract sales as easily as ads with offers.
• If you use a name@bigpond.com email address you are screaming “SMALL BUSINESS” to the target market – every single business should have a website these days, so if you have a domain name then ensure that you use it as an email address as well. It’s all about Perception.
• If you only list your mobile numbers and not a landline this again screams “SMALL BUSINESS” and may affect people’s desire to choose your product or service over your competitors. It is absolutely fine to list your mobile, but have a landline as well (even if it is redirected to your mobile) again – it’s all about perception.
• If you are going to send out bulk emails, it’s a great way to get a message across to your growing database, but make sure you add a custom field to the email so the person knows it is for them personally and their business personally. By saying “Dear Anna – Best Tyres,” You will get better results than a “Hi Everyone” email burst.
• Finally if you discount too much and that is the focus of all of your advertising, marketing and sales techniques then you are making the market think that you are CHEAP. Cheap says bad quality and if you want better customers who spend more, you need to NOT discount. Instead sell at the standard price that is competitive with the industry but value add, and up sell. Mc Donald’s are world leaders in the upsell – “would you like to upsize that?” Why not take a leaf out of the big boy’s book, if the theories work for them they can work for you too.

So hopefully you will have gained a few ideas from this week’s blog and will have a good look at what your team is doing, how you can improve your marketing and how you can make sure that you meet your KPI’s every month without fail.

Welcome to the New Financial Year – Let’s make this one – the one to remember because it’s the one where your business turned around.

If you need any Sales or Marketing assistance feel free to contact us to arrange your Free Consultation. Or alternatively if you want to learn more about Marketing but have a shoe string budget check out www.mymarketingresource.com.au

No one likes a Tyre Kicker!

The phone rings, you spend 30 minutes talking to the person enquiring about your product or service, great you think. You set up an appointment to meet – even better. You spend an hour or more putting together a proposal or quote and send it off thinking you are in with a good chance of winning the work because the meeting went so well and the prospect seemed so engaged….

A week later you follow up – strange you thought you’d have head by now – they seemed so keen to get things going when you met with them. The person you need to speak to is in a meeting – you leave a message and send an email.

You phone again because your messages have not been responded to. Finally you get through to the person and they again tell you that yes things are proceeding and that there are just a few things to do before they make any decisions about your quote.

So you give it another week and try again, same story, you start to get despondent, you soon realise that this is going nowhere fast and that it’s the same old story playing out time after time.

So here’s a novel concept for the tyre kickers of the world:
If you are seriously looking for a product or a service – look for it when you are ready and the big decisions have been made and you have a budget to play with.

If someone takes time to speak with you, meet with you and send you a comprehensive quote acknowledge it with a friendly thank you email and that you will be back to them within a set timeframe and stick to it.

If you are the service or product supplier
Make sure you talk budget before you spend time at a meeting – you need to know these people have the financial backing to purchase from you and are not just bleeding you dry of information for comparisons. You also want to be the right choice for the prospect – there is little point in selling a $5000 item to someone who has $500.

Make sure you know exactly what the client wants and who they are before you go to any meeting – research their website as if you talk their language you are more likely to convert. I send out New Client Questionnaires – it makes the first meeting so much more valuable for both parties.

In the meeting respond to their body language by mirroring it – if you are “the same” as them they will feel much more comfortable with you.

Tell them in the meeting that you will be following up and set a deadline for a final response and make sure you diarise to do it – then do it, people like it when you stick to your word.

Imagine a streamlined business world where people asked for something and they got it, on time, to budget and they didn’t have to chase their tail to get a simple yes or no answer.

In summary
Whether you are a Consumer or a Supplier – be kind to your fellow business people, realise that their time is just as precious as yours. Be grateful for their time and ensure you verbalize your thanks. If you know you are not going to buy from the supplier – tell them as soon as you know and there will be a much more productive work force in place across the board. It’s a simple concept but a vital one to ensuring that our businesses and our economy thrive. So start helping to make the business wheel turn and stop pulling out spokes along the way and slowing down progress.

How to elevate yourself as an expert by writing one simple blog regularly.

So you’re an Expert eh?

This is the information age, have you noticed how information hungry people are these days? Everyone wants to bleed you dry of what you know, so to avoid the endless phone calls about everything and anything why not put yourself out there as an expert in your field, after all – you are, aren’t you?

No one knows your business like you, no one comes to the exact same conclusions you do and so that combined with your experience and qualifications makes you an expert.

So why bother with all that writing and posting of comments? What’s the point?

The point:

Fact: The internet is the way people search for products and services these days.

Fact: There is far too much information on the internet to make decisions easy.

Fact: People buy from people they trust, trust breeds loyalty and loyal customers are 15 times easier and cheaper to sell to than attracting new ones every time.

Concept: If you make the decision making process easier by answering common questions online in e-books, on forums, on your blog, on your website, via social media you will elevate yourself as a solution provider.

If your competition is not doing this (or not doing it well) you have a niche way to market your business.

Ok so how do you do it?

1. Think of 1 topic that you are an expert on.

2. Write One Blog about the topic you are an expert on – use WordPress to create this initially (having a separate URL means you have more links going to your main website – which makes you rise up the Google Index).

3. Post the Blog in the blog section of your website.

4. Take 5 extracts from that blog and turn them into 140 character comments for Facebook, Twitter and Linked In. Post them with the Blog link.

5. Go onto some industry related Forums – read the questions and answer them – make sure you are not selling your business, just being helpful, but always leave your website address – it helps to create those all important links (which makes you rise up the Google Index).

6. Whilst you are on these forums start discussions and use the blog post to give them something to feed off of.

7. Set up your weekly / monthly email campaign and post your blog (1st Paragraph only) then add a Read More button that links to the blog on your website (not the word press blog – you want people to browse your website as well as your blog).

• Tip: Use professional email marketing software to create good looking email campaigns that are branded and have a statistics package attached to it so you can see who opened the email, when and what they clicked on (great for target marketing).

8. Collate all of the blogs you write – once you have 6 blogs on one topic – turn it into an E Book – put a nice cover on it and post it on your website as a FREE REPORT on your topic of expertise. It then acts as a Lead Magnet and people will find your website because of it. You will obviously need to post comments about it and links out on social media, email and through the blog about it – but you can see it will be seen as a resource.

This means that you are writing one document and sending is (or parts of it out by).
• Wordpress Blog Links
• Social media
• Forum posts
• Email Marketing
• Direct on your website blog
• Through your E Book

Repeat steps 1 – 8 weekly, fortnightly or monthly – whatever you have time to do – but be consistent and keep to the same schedule, people like patterns.

How long does this take?
Your blog needs to be 1or 2 pages MAX, less is better – add links for relevancy if you need to elaborate or have a tendency to over explain. The keep it simple rule is best, people really only absorb a small amount of info at a time, so don’t over load them. Make the topic poignant, relevant, interesting and thought provoking. You will be surprised at how many conversations you can start on social media and on forums by providing the topic for people to talk about.

You should use Hootsuite to schedule your social media comments.
You should already know which forums discuss things on your area of expertise – if you don’t – find out and use these forums regularly.

So remember – you are an expert and only you can tell people what you know. People will listen because they want to.

I think its key to remember “that you don’t know what you don’t know”. Non one knows everything so believe in yourself, make sure your information is correct, compelling and succinct and you are onto a winner.

Happy Blogging!

What would I change

Ive been thinking about what I would chage if I had my time over again. Im 35 I am married to an awesome bloke, I have two great kids (who are admittedly at times hard bloody work – but then whose kids aren’t, they are aged 1 and 2 so it’s possibly just an age thing too) and I have been running my own business in excess of 5 years now – successfully, we have a nice house, a nice car and all that jazz.

I have travelled the world and had a VERY full life in my 20′s and have an even fuller life now, perhaps with a few less jars of ale, but never the less its still jam packed. So why does it always feel as though its a struggle? When you lay things out like I just did – Im painting the white picket fence image yet my head feels like its in a different space. Im sure its a common phenomenon, and really if Im honest the struggle is not about life, kids, family and what we posses, its about money. End of story – money is definately the root to all evil, but it is a necessary evil and something I’d like to be able to earn more of.

So what would I have changed – one thing. I would have saved some of the money I frittered away on alcoholic fuelled adventures and created a little nest egg when I was younger and had no kids, mortgage or responsibilties so that by now I could have paid off my mortgage and have a few investment properties under my belt earning me a nice residual income whilst I slept.

The moral to this story, if you have kids who are working, earning and spending like wild fire – give them a peice of advice and tell them to save a dollar for every ten they spend.

What would I have done with this nest egg? Thats simple, I would have invested in property. I have seen the way house prices have risen beyond belief in both my native homeland – England and in Australia and seriously – if you want to make money – that is where it is.

Ive recently taken on a new client who is in the property investment industry, he sat me down and told me what I had to do to get on track… it makes sense. It’s something I need to work on. If you want some real advice without all the bullshit sales speal, then I recommend you chat to Daimien Patterson.

Im actually hosting his upcoming seminar, and working on this project has made me even more passionate about property investments, now Im not being paid to write this, I just think its something that I want to share.

The details about the seminar are online – if you want to come and find out more about it all or send your earning children to come and learn about what is really good for them, its on This Saturday 14th May in Kallangur (north brisbane). www.propertyinvestmentbootcamp.com.au

What else would I change, nothing… I have my family, my hubby, a business I love and a vision for the future. Im living life, but if I just had a few investment properties I could be living life with a bit less stress and thats something we all dream of.

Over and Out!

Angie

Why Can’t it be Me? – Truth is… it can!

Property Bootcamp Seminar - This Saturday 14th May 2011, Don't Miss it!!!

Remember that girl you used to go to school with, she had a few mates, but not heaps, she kinda kept herself to herself and most of you thought she was a bit odd and you never really knew much about her because she was the one that everyone picked on?

Well, last month she purchased a brand new Land Rover Freelander 2 and I heard that she has 8 investment properties to her name plus a nice big house she lives in.

So you start to think about how she might have done that:

• She must have married a rich bloke
• Or maybe she is into the Drug scene
• Maybe she is a Doctor or a Lawyer

She is a mother of two kids under 10, she works as a legal secretary for 4 days a week (during school hours), her hubby is a manager for a medium sized construction company and she lives close to you in Suburbia comfortably. She doesn’t have to work but she loves the distraction and really gets on with her colleagues. She has always been smart and so staying at home didn’t fulfill her needs. The family has a cleaner and they send the kids to good schools and she has a nanny to help her when she needs it.

So now you are really wondering how this girl who went to the same school as you and had the same education and opportunities as you has manage to become so successful?

Answer: She was smart enough to take the time to allow someone to explain to her HOW to invest in Property.

Would you like to have the same opportunities?

Then come to this free Property Investor Boot Camp run by three leading Australian Property Experts Daimien Patterson, Nick Burke and John Farley!

What you will find out
• The difference between Good Debt and Bad Debt
• Find out how to predict a property BOOM
• How you can realistically own 64 properties inside 20 years
• How to pay off your home inside 7 years
• Market trends from Flat to Boom, then Peak to Correction.
• How to apply what you have learnt to yourself

Details
Date: 14th May
Venue: North’s Leagues Club, Kallangur (Ivy Room)
Time: 9am – 12pm
Cost: Free
Logon to register: www.propertyinvestmentbootcamp.com.au
(Seats are limited and filling fast)

So you see it can be you, you have the power and the ability to do whatever you want in life – the ones who make the most money are the ones who take the best risks (note word “best” – its all about having the right strategy and doing sensible things to reach your goals).

I am MCing this event and I truly believe in what Daimien Patterson has to say – he is a smart cookie, so if you want to seriously look at how to Invest in Property then get off the couch and do something about it. Your time is now – so make it count.

Over and Out…

What’s the point?

I woke up this morning and had an “I can do anything” kind of start to the day, everything went to plan (except my 2 year old smearing yoghurt all over the sofa), buy you can cope with that…

I had two meetings booked for the day. First meeting does not go as planned and we achieve next to zilch, second meeting – gets cancelled twenty minutes after it is due to start, followd by a phone call of we need to hold fire… OK so not a great start.

So now I am feeling a bit “for F**Ks sake what the point?” then I got thinking about that statement – what is the point? Why did I start this business 5 years ago?
I came to the conclusion that I started it because I wanted the challenge, I wanted something of my own, I did not want to work for a boss and I wanted to help small and medium sized businesses to thrive. Well I have a challenge, I am my own boss, its my own company and I do help small and medium sized businesses every day. I have to remind myself that I started with just me and now there are 5 of us. Its not bad.

I have to realise that it is pointless in dwelling on clients who don’t want to focus on their businesses on one particular day because there are plenty who do, some days my clients have bad days too.

I have come to the realisation that
1. I am good at what I do
2. I do not run a charity
3. If I want more business I have to go and find it
4. If I want to succeed I have to work at it
5. Nothing comes on a gold platter
6. Other peoples situations should not affect mine so personally

Does this sound familiar to you?
I wrote this to say to those of you who are having a crap day – that crap days happen, tomorrow is a new day and it’s all about how you look at the situation, if it looks like it is a big black hole – then it will be, if you laugh at it and shrug yor shoulders and get on with it – then it will not affect you.

Hope you all have shrugable or enjoyable or awesome day – don’t let the gloom and doom consume.

Angie

Marketing in an ever changing world

We live in an uncertain world, things change, nothing stays the same, even our government is on the brink of change, which ever party finally wins, what we can expect is change. We needn’t be scared of this, like “they” say, “a change is as good as a rest”.

Change is something that should be factored into every business regardless of size or stature. Businesses need to be an ever evolving, constantly growing entity which has room for movement and development. Just like our government, a business needs to overhaul practices and policy, dredge up the things that are making the vehicle fail and look at ways to “move forwards”.

Businesses don’t work without people, people are the key element to running a successful businesses, the second biggest factor is telling your target market about your business, because you can have the best ‘blue widget’ in the world, but if no – one knows about it, you don’t have a blue widget selling business.

Look at the way our politicians have advertised themselves, they shout about their USP – what’s so good about them, they point out what their competitors are doing wrong (although in business I would suggest that you point out what you are doing right rather than getting into a nit picking fight). They also use the power of repetition, which is why we can probably all recite advertising slogans and we all know what each party will do for our great nation if they are elected. Another thing they do well is that they go out to campaign to their chosen target market face to face. Building trust is crucial to success of a politician as well as a business, use it, make it work and reap the rewards.

Consider using this style of marketing as in your business, sure they have millions of our money to blow on marketing, but the principles are similar.

• Decide on your message
• Make it clear and easy to understand
• Use Marketing methods that speak to your target market
• Shout about your USP
• Repetition is king
• Get out there are market your business personally.

Garnish Marketing is a Brisbane based Marketing Consultancy, we can help to refine and define your marketing campaigns to directly speak to your target market. Make sure you are one step ahead of the competition; get your share of the market by marketing smartly.

Join us for a FREE Marketing seminar, get ideas, be inspired and think outside the box.
Monday 13th Sept 2010
6pm – 9pm
North’s Leagues Club, Kallangur

Angie Hammond
Garnish Marketing
Managing Director

Tel: 07 3482 4286 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              07 3482 4286      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
angie@garnish.com.au
www.garnish.com.au

The Art and Science of Small Business Marketing.

Understanding the balance between art and science when it comes to marketing a small business is at times tricky. There is a fine line between the creative and the message. Ensuring that the creative is powerful is essential but getting the message right is far more important.

The thing that every small business owner needs to grasp is that marketing is the process of “buying” your customers.

So first of all who are your customers? Do they come from a variety of genres? If so, will your marketing speak directly to each of these groups as a collective or will you have to tailor your message to each group?

Think about the ART of marketing to your customers in two parts

1. The creative – your brand, corporate colours and general style needs to be consistent throughout your marketing tools – whatever your message.

2. The message – the copy style should have a similar vane, but the actual message you are sending can and should alter if you have more than one defined target market group.

Think about the SCIENCE of marketing to your customers in two parts

1. How are you going to spread your message? What vehicle will you use to convey your message? These needs to be though about carefully as whatever you choose must target your defined customers and it must work in with your set budget.

2. How will you measure the results? – Its important to know what works so you don’t make costly mistakes again and again.

It is simple when you break it down, but often it is over complicated or not thought through enough and that is when results are low or non existent.

Case Study
A new company puts together an eye catching double sided DL flyer and sends out 10,000 copies for distribution across various residential suburbs. A few weeks pass and no calls are received and no hits to the website are received.

What went wrong?
The DL looked great – but it didn’t have the target market in mind. It spoke too generally about the product.

There was no call to action on the flyer – so there was no real reason for the recipients to rush to make contact with the company. A call to action is vital. Give them a reason to contact you.

The spread was too far and wide – concentrating on one area and saturating that area first is a better idea before casting the blanket further afield.

Residential unaddressed direct mail outs yield low success rates so volume is key here. Generally you can expect a 2-3% success rate (if there is a call to action). This means that if you send out 10,000 flyers expect 200 – 300 enquiries, if you are great at sales expect to convert 25% into sales so that is 50 – 75 sales.

Let’s say that the design job costs $400, the Print of 10,000 flyers costs 800 and the distribution costs $750 – that is a total of $1950 to tell 10,000 residential homes about your product.

If we work on the worst case scenario = 50 sales – the product you are selling needs to be worth over $39 in profit to break even on the marketing exercise. If you have a call to action with a discount on it – you need to deduct that % from the final amount.

Bottom line is – ensure what you are selling whether it is a product or a service is going to get a ROI (return on investment) for your marketing dollar spend.

What the Mail out did do
The Company was essentially exposed to 10,000 residential homes.

Some of the recipients may have kept the flyer for later use.

It has started some brand exposure – but the only way to keep that brand exposure going is to continue the mail outs. It is documented that a person only recognises and reacts to a brand after the 7th time they see it. That is a lot of saturation for a small company to commit to for one sale. This means that the sale of one item to each customer costs 7 x one flyer distributed, so work out the cost of your marketing against the profit per sale and decide if this vehicle is worth the effort for your one sale.

Summary
• The creative and the message really need to speak to your target market.

• The creative needs to work with the rest of your marketing tools so brand recognition starts to work.

• Think outside the box when it comes to your marketing, doing something that has low % success rates may not be a good way to expose your business.

• Understand that you are buying customers so spend your money wisely. Like any major purchase, shop around to get good deals and ask for advice from experts.

• Break down your marketing into the Art and the Science and decide strategically what is best for your business.

Need help with any aspect of your marketing?
Helping small businesses is what we do – so contact us for your free consultation

07 3482 4286
angie@garnish.com.au
www.garnish.com.au

Super mum or Stupid mum

How did it happen? I’ve become one of those mums you see in the supermarket screaming at their children to behave. Before kids come along I used to look at those mothers and think “I’ll never become like that”. Yet as my 5 month old bellows as he cuts his second tooth for the week and my nearly 2 year old hits him for making a noise – thus worsening the belllowing, I tune out the world around me and metamorphose into some sort of neurotic, high pitched bogan we all dread to become. The other shoppers look at me with disapproving stares, which quite frankly makes me want to punch them square in the face. A poor bloke who tried to use the “been there done that” line murmurred something to me and I nearly ate his entire head in one gulp, until I realised he was actually being nice not making witty judgements. Some people look at me with pity and some use humour to try to make my obvious scowl dissapear. Somewhere between dog food and detergent a young woman comes up to me to ask if I would like some help. Lovely as her offer of help to nurse my screaming infant was, all it really did was highlight how much Im not coping with this situation and how obvious that is to the rest of the world. Fuck! I wanted to cry.

Its hard being a control freak and losing control, its not something I relish at all. Im the – I can do it all kinda chick, super mum – or just stupid mum???
Im not sure when I turned into this “person” who NEEDS to have EVERYTHING done and perfectly. I know I’ve always tried to do my best and that Ive always sought approval, that has always been my way from a young age, but this insessant need to be the do-er is something that has developed since I’ve had kids. What is it in the pregnancy gene that turns you into this type of person that must do the housework, must have all the kids stuff done, be a good mum, entertain the kids, teach the kids, do the groceries, walk the dogs, feed the dogs, run a full time business and try to loose weight and tone up with various types of exercise. How did I honestly think this was going to go, other than badly?

So the conclusion is that in order not to be stupid mum, super mum has to take a back seat, things have to be left to slide, and I have to feel less guilty about letting them go. What is this goddamned mothers guilt anyway – who bloody invented that. At the point that we find out we are pregnant the government should run workshops to prepare mothers about what to expect and how to deal with day to day living with children and everything else. Or maybe they should stick warning stickers on the bums of every newborn that reads – “Warning!!! I will completely change your world, say goodbye to sleep, say hello to nappies, dark circles, constant headaches and bouts of what feels like a nervous breakdown. Important note: You will also feel enormous love for me even when I’m doing this – which will frusterate you, but is the one thing that means I know you love me unconditionally. Handle me with care, until Im 18, by then I may need a swift kick in the rear if Im still not behaving”

When I was childfree, I’d read these articles about how the hardest job in the world was being a mum, its bloody true, so if you are about to become a mum – watch out, its gonna change your life…

Don’t get me wrong I love my kids, they are great, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t hard work, or that some days I’d like to stick my head in the sand and only come up for air and sips of red wine.

I hate the saying “its so rewarding” who wrote that Mary fuckin Poppins? Yeah ok its not all bad, but I gotta tell ya, it has its days. Today is one of them!

So its 4pm on monday arvo and Im writing this stuff down to expel it from my system, I guess its working, well it would if my youngest hadn’t just pooed on me and my eldest wasn’t eating my pink highlighter pen and opening and closing the drawers in my office…

So until next time, when hopefully I’ll have tales of how wonderful life is and how I just baked fresh cookies from scratch, I shall bid you farewell, off to the change mat for me.

Aww Zak just gave me a huge grin, it is all worth it – its just some days…. some days…..
x

Sizing Up Alice

08/05/09

It’s been a week since my last confession, and since then I have had another scan, this time to make sure that Alice’s little heart is pumping in time to MC Hammer’s Hammertime, which it is – Hurrah!!

Stop thinking about hammer pants and shuffling sideways….

She’s going at 148bpm and she measured 8weeks on the nose last week (she should have measured 7 weeks +1 day). So either we are a few days over the initial estimate or… like Jake she is going to be “bloody enormous” and I’ll be waddling round like an overeaten walrus before we know it.

All of those who read the last diary will remember the concerns we had about “George’s” (Jake’s) gestational age and size of his head. He came out perfectly – but as a preemie at 6lb 12oz he was far from small and he has a big noggin – just like his Pa , so if Jake is our measuring gauge, Alice is likely to be another “mother of a baby”, good job the slippery dip is already oiled up eh!

Yet again I am going to buy shares in Bio Oil and Palmers Cocoa Butter for stretch marks, no stretch marks for me thanks – didn’t get one from Jake the monster, and do not intend to get any from Alice either, not that I really am that bothered to be honest – it was just nice to not have any. Quite impressive really considering I looked like a small African nation.

I’ve just come from an interesting meeting, which hopefully (if I pull my bloody finger out and stop procrastinating) will change the shape of my business and make us a bit of extra residual income. We were chatting about introducing new technology into what I do; one of the discussions was about creating video messages to send out webinars and the like. There is a new technology where you can use a green screen so you can be displayed onto any background you like even if you are at home with the kids running around like hooligans.

So my over active imagination goes straight into me giving a marketing presentation about something obviously wonderful and very useful whilst I am being beamed across an image of a tropical beach, saying “you too could be working here, blah blah blah…” when all of a sudden the voice of a small child comes across the speaker – “Mum, I’ve done a POOOOOOOO” – even though this all happened in my head – it made me laugh. Sad when you make yourself laugh eh! Oh well….

So my belly has started to go into the small hard bump stage (already I hear you cry – yeah me too – it’s all happened sooooo much faster the 2nd time round) It’s like being pregnant with Jake on speed.

Alice apparently now looks more like a Human than she has so far – which is good, if she had started to take the shape of a mongoose I’d be concerned. Her hands and feet are now taking shape and the spine is being formed. It’s all pretty cool when you think about it, while I’m sitting her drinking tea and typing this – I’m growing Alice some ears!!! Lets hope she bloody listens, unlike her brother- who I’m sure conveniently doesn’t listen to the word NO on purpose, especially when he grins after doing the naughty act (whatever that may be – there are numerous things he does which he thinks are flippin hilarious, but are totally bad). He surely is a menace and if definitely spawn of his father – not me because I was perfect (of course! Mum – back me up here)

Well it’s my very first Mothers Day this Sunday – how very exciting. All I ask is for a cuppa in bed on Sunday morning and a cuddle from my boys.

To all those Mummies out there – have a great day, you do an amazing job – keep it up! I never really realised what an enormous job being a parent is until Jake arrived. I have complete admiration for people with big families, I have one gorgeous yet crazed child and one cooking and that really is enough, anymore and I’d go completely bonkers.

Anyway – all is well, no sickness (touch wood) just a few flutterings and a heap of being as tired as an old dog, my brain has remarkably stayed in-tact (well it’s no worse than before) so far, but watch this space – baby brain will come – it’s a guarantee….

Until next time

Love

Angie & The incredible Alice (Alice, who the F**K is Alice)

xxx